"Treme's" second season ends with a 90-minute episode starting at 9 p.m. Sunday (July 3) on HBO, so recap writers and other less familiar observers are weighing in on the season as a whole, and some stories are emerging about the cast's summer plans.

Paul Schiraldi/HBOMelissa Leo and David Morse in 'Treme.'

Ellen Gray of the Philadelphia Daily News places David Morse, who lives in Philly, headed for a film festival near Prague to promote a film titled "The Collaborator." She also asks him about the Colson-Toni relationship in season two:

"Everything that happens to my character over the course of this, for most of us, really, but all the things in terms of the relationship, it would all happen in one episode on a regular television series," Morse says. "You'd have some kind of conclusion by the end. You'd see the whole progression . . . and maybe in two episodes, we'd get it on.

"But that's exactly what David (Simon) said. Even introducing my character last year, when he asked me to do this, it was, 'So we're just going to see you a little bit at the end of the season. And you basically have to trust me that this is how we like things to unfold. We like it to be more like things really happen.' "

Kev Geoghegan of BBC News previews Clarke Peters' upcoming stand in a U.K. staging of "Othello," which will also feature Peters' colleague from "The Wire," Dominic West. Peters talks about wearing his Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief costume:

"Its a transformative kind of thing, sometimes you put on a costume and adopt a character. But the Indian suit plays you.

"The ritual that was going on while I was putting it on brought all kinds of energies to the moment. It was almost palpable."

I have never made it to New Orleans, but watching "Treme" every week creates the grand illusion that I have. And the more I watch these misfits and zealots and vagabonds (or, as Alexander's LaDonna would sum them up with three disdainful syllables, "musicians") who don't feel quite at home anywhere else on the planet, the more I feel a kinship with them. New Orleans is not for everyone. Nor is "Treme," but when I take my fictional trip there every Sunday night, it doesn't make sense that I would want to be anywhere else.

The most obvious problem with Treme is that it is boring. Probably the most significant plot development of this past season was that one character formed a band. Also another character formed a band. Some bad things happened as well, and there seems to have been some shoddy police work that took place during Katrina, but all in all, it feels like things are going to be more or less okay. All we have a group of well-meaning characters sort of muddling their way towards happiness.

So instead of practicing watchdog journalism, Simon is in the business of watchdog fiction. In that sense, he’s on the other side of the coin from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who use humor and satire to fill the void left by actual news outlets. It’s an unstinting brand of agitprop TV, though, that demands a lot of viewers. Kudos to HBO for supporting it -- at least for a third season.

As an actual TV show, Treme has, from the beginning, been one weird river-monster. It's simultaneously diffuse and didactic, seemingly as much the product of (David) Simon's legendary disinclination to accept network notes as his love for New Orleans or his outrage at the institutional negligence that almost killed it. Also, it wasn't The Wire: Port of Call Crescent City, which for a lot of viewers was a deal-breaker.

(R)rather argue like an op-ed, Treme feels like poetry, and even better, it has begun to incorporate critiques of its own New Orleans exceptionalism, playfully showing the ways these attitudes can sour into pedantry, as they do on occasion with that Indian Chief, who is currently in New York driving his jazz musician son crazy with his passive-aggressive provincialism.

Did I say poetry? I meant music. Often, Treme feels like we’ve been invited to a very cool party. Or a party full of parties: The party scenes on this series are spectacular. I’m not into jazz — at all — and I’m loving the music scenes. Look, people, what can I say, you'll just have to trust me. The finale is this Sunday, but you know how to use that DVR.

Dave Walker can be reached at dwalker@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3429. Read more TV coverage at nola.com/tv. Follow him at twitter.com/davewalkertp.